


questioning a miracle

by helsinkibaby



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Community: comment_fic, F/M, Het, Rare Pair, Romance, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-12
Updated: 2017-02-12
Packaged: 2018-09-23 22:11:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9681653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helsinkibaby/pseuds/helsinkibaby
Summary: A second soulmate is almost unheard of - but not impossible.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [boomersoonerash](https://archiveofourown.org/users/boomersoonerash/gifts).



> The Flash, Caitlin Snow/Joe West, Soulmate Tattoo AU  
> Theme : AU  
> http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/779888.html?thread=101252464#t101252464
> 
> So I'm not hugely au fait with soulmate AUs but this is what I came up with!

Caitlin winces as she wakes up, winces again as she sits up in bed. Frowning, she reaches up over her right shoulder with her left hand, rubbing circles into the prickly ache that she feels there. She must have slept awkwardly on it, she thinks, twisted or pulled herself during the night. Lord knows, with the strange dreams she'd had in her lifetime, it certainly wouldn't be the first time that she'd woken up with a strange ache or pain. 

This one is different though, not the sharp ache of a pulled muscle, nor the buzzing hum of trapped nerves. This is like a thousand tiny needles stabbing her all at once and she's never felt anything like it before. 

Deciding that perhaps a shower will help, she stands, pads into the bathroom and turns on the water. She makes it as hot as she can stand it, stands under for longer than she usually would, turning her back on the spray and letting it beat down against her skin. 

It doesn't do a damn thing to stop the sensation. 

Frowning, she turns off the shower, wraps a towel around her body and steps towards the mirror. It's all fogged up with steam and she rubs at it impatiently, turning around and looking back over her shoulder to see if there's any mark that would give her a clue to what might be causing this. 

There's a mark all right. 

Her blood runs cold when she sees it and she'd swear her heart stops beating for a second before lurching painfully back to life. Because this particular mark raises more questions than it answers, in more ways than one. 

She recognises that handwriting, has seen it more times than she cares to remember - even in this age of emails and text messages, he's old school, prefers to write where he can, scribbles notations on printouts of police reports that arrive at STAR Labs and expects them to decipher his chicken scratch. Which she could always do, right from the off. 

She recognises that handwriting, that signature, the looping curves that read Joseph West. 

She recognises it and her breath catches in her throat because she knows what that mark means. 

Just like she knows that it can't mean what she knows it means. 

Her vision goes blurry at the edges and she grips onto the cool porcelain of the bathroom sink in an effort to keep herself upright.

Somewhere, far away, her cell phone rings. 

She lets it ring out, knows she won't get to it in time. By the time she's able to walk into her bedroom again, it's beeped with a voicemail and she plays it, already knowing who it is. 

Sure enough, Joe's voice comes through the speakers and he sounds as shaken as she feels. 

"Caitlin, it's me." There's a pause, a heavy sigh. "I think we need to talk." 

*

She doesn't call him back, not sure of whether she can trust her voice. She sends him a text message instead, tells him to come over, sends another to Cisco to let him know she has some errands to run so she'll come into work a little later. She blow dries her hair, but not carefully, dresses quickly, wincing at the touch of the material of her blouse against her sensitive skin, but she's only doing up the buttons when there's a knock at her front door. 

Joe looks as apprehensive as she feels when she steps back to let him in. His eyes move around her apartment as he steps into the living room, stops and turns to meet her gaze when he's standing beside the couch. "So..." he says, crossing his arms over his chest, "you too?"

She nods slowly, mimicking his posture. "Just below my right shoulder blade," she tells him. 

She's not surprised when he nods. "Same." He lets out a long breath, slides one hand down over his lips. "And it just... appeared." 

"When I woke up this morning." She glances down at her right wrist, bare now, and for a moment she experiences a slight sense of vertigo, able to see so clearly in her mind's eye the name that was written there for so long. Ronnie's name had begun to fade not long after he'd died in the singularity but it had been there since the day she was born. She still remembers hearing him say her name for the first time in STAR Labs, rolling the syllables around in his mouth with a smile like he couldn't quite believe it. He'd held out his hand and he'd said his name and when their skin touched, the jolt of electricity that ran through her body was like nothing she'd ever experienced. 

The memory makes her tilt her head curiously. "Did you and Francine..."

Her voice trails off when she thinks she might be overstepping her boundaries but one hand goes to his heart, traces a path there. "Yeah," he says. "I was born with her name right here... she was born with mine." He sighs. "It began to fade not long after she left... it's why I was so sure she was dead, why I told Iris..." He stops talking, presses his lips together. "It was only when she came back I figured that it had faded because one or other of us had broken our bond." He shrugs. "I still don't know which one of us it was." 

It's on the tip of Caitlin's tongue to point out that Francine was the one who had left but she bites the observation back. Going over ancient history isn't going to solve anything. "Why us?" she wonders instead. "I mean, we don't..." She waves her hand between them. "We aren't..." 

He holds his hands up as if in surrender. "I got nothin'," he says. Then he narrows his eyes like something's occurred to him. "You don't think Barry's been messing with time again?"

Caitlin doesn't hesitate to shake her head. "I think he's learned his lesson." She takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly. "No... this is... something else." 

Except she has no idea what because the obvious solution - that she and Joe really are each other's second soulmate, something that's so rare it's almost unheard of - is so far out of left field that she can't even begin to quantify it. 

There's a long moment of silence between them then, and Joe's the one who breaks it with a soft question. "Can I see it?"

Her first impulse is to say no. 

Then she meets his eyes and turns, sweeps her hair over her left shoulder and begins to slowly unbutton her blouse. Not all the way, just enough that she can slip it off her shoulder, exposing his name to the air. She can hear him approaching her, hears the sharp intake of his breath, feels it against the nape of her neck. 

She's not sure whether it's that or the cool air of the room that gives her goosebumps. 

She looks over her shoulder at him, sees his eyes are dark and serious. "Your turn." Her voice is huskier than usual and she swallows hard, trying to inject some moisture into her throat. 

He steps back from her, pulls his tie off and jams it into his jacket pocket. Next the jacket goes, thrown onto her couch and he's turning, just as she did, unbuttoning his shirt and taking that off too. He's wearing a white tank top underneath and sure enough, there's her name, in her own handwriting, peeking out from underneath. The first couple of letters are hidden by the white cotton and, without conscious thought, she reaches out to push it aside, wanting to see the whole tattoo, as if that's going to make any difference. 

Except that it does. 

Because when her fingertips brush against her skin, a rush of electricity runs down her spine, makes goosebumps erupt all over her body. 

She pulls her hand away as if burned and her gasp mingles with his as he turns to face her. His eyes are wide, his jaw slack and he's staring at her hand, still hanging in the air between them. "Did you..." His voice is lower than she's ever heard it. "Did you feel that?"

Her heart is pounding so loudly she's surprised he can't hear it and her throat is so completely dry that all she can do is nod. 

"Joe..." she manages to whisper and the mere sound of his name on her lips sends a swell of desire, as sudden as it is powerful, surging through her. 

He takes a step towards her, then another and then he's standing right in front of her, close enough to touch. "We don't have to do this," he says, but the hunger in his voice, in his eyes, belies his words. He reaches out slowly, carefully, one hand cupping her cheek and the sensation of his palm against her skin almost makes her go weak at the knees. 

"Caitlin..."

Her name on his lips proves her undoing altogether. 

Because the only thing she wants to do, the only thing she's able to do, is kiss him, so that's what she does. 

And when her knees give out and he catches her, lowers her oh so gently to the couch and covers her body with his own, it's everything she never knew she needed. 

*

"You ok?" 

Hours later, Joe's voice is thick with sleep and satisfaction when he asks her that question. She's never heard him sound quite like that before; she instantly decides she could get used to it. And she could definitely get used to the sensation of his finger against her skin, tracing the pattern of his signature. 

Lifting her head from his chest, she smiles up at him, harder than it sounds when her bones feel like liquid. "Do you even have to ask?"

She's going for teasing but the look in his eyes is anything but. "Yes," he says. "I meant what I said... earlier. We don't have to..." His voice trails off when she runs one hand down his chest and there's an instant, and very noticeable, affect on him. He grits his teeth as she bites back a smile, ducks her head down and kisses his chest. She doesn't miss the shiver that results. 

"Sure about that?" she asks, teasing again and this time he chuckles. 

"I didn't say I didn't want to," he points out. "But, Caitlin... I'm getting the better part of this deal." She frowns, not understanding, and he rolls his eyes. "Twenty years younger than me, gorgeous, intelligent..." He shakes his head. "You could do better." 

It's not just the memory of her dating life for the last couple of years that has her swatting his chest. "What if I don't want someone else?" she asks, pointedly ignoring his adjective. "What if this is what I want?" 

The fingers that have been idly tracing her soulmark still, then move around to close over her shoulder as he pulls her closer against him. It's its own answer to her question but he has another question for her. "What do we tell people?" 

For that, at least, she has an answer. "The truth," she says. "That we're soul mates... and after everything we've been through, I'm not about to question a miracle." 

He holds her gaze for a long moment before he nods, bringing his lips to hers. "Me neither," he says as he kisses her and then talking is the furthest thing from either of their minds.


End file.
